The worldwide energy demands have been increasing rapidly with growing industrialization and globalization. A hefty amount of non-renewable sources of energy are being expended in the form of electricity and petroleum-based fuels. With the decreasing difference between demand and supply of petroleum based fuels, there is an increase in amount of irrational premium payment by the importer countries and that puts a lot of pressure on the economy of developing countries like India. Alternate/renewable modes of generating usable energy is therefore need of the hour.
Solar energy is one of the most widely used alternate sources of energy which utilises sunlight and converts it to electricity either directly using photovoltaics (PV), or indirectly using concentrated solar power (CSP). Photovoltaics converts light into electric current using the photoelectric effect whereas concentrated solar power systems use lenses or mirrors and tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight into a small beam. These state of the art systems however are expensive and require substantial installation costs and large installation area and their efficiency is affected by environmental pollution and other factors.
Further, the existing solar power plants require direct/indirect sunlight for their functioning and therefore, they function only in the presence of sunlight. The efficiency of the existing systems start decreasing after sometime and normally have a life span of 25 years.
Therefore, an economical and efficient system for generation of electricity is required which reduces material, installation and maintenance costs, reduces fuel consumption, has a longer life span and is capable of working at ambient temperature of the atmosphere.